The Bachelorette finale: Emily picks her man

Jef’s play time with Ricki leads to bad news for Arie.

Emily Maynard waits to hand out her final rose on the season finale of The Bachelorette on July 22.

By:Debra YeoToronto Star, Published on Mon Jul 23 2012

In the end, it came down to one 6-year-old girl, some frolicking in a pool and a Cheetos-stained doll.

Once Emily Maynard had introduced Jef Holm to her daughter, Ricki, it was game over for Arie Luyendyk Jr. on the season finale of The Bachelorette.

I’d argue the final outcome wasn’t much of a surprise even without reading the spoilers (which I just read for the first time Sunday night and, yes, Jef was the spoiler pick).

The surprise was that Emily sent Arie packing without a final date.

Shades of Ali Fedotowsky’s season; let’s just hope things turn out better for Emily and Jef than they did for Ali and Roberto.

Of course, once we’d seen Arie dispatched by a crying Emily the usual “who will she pick” suspense was gone.

But the possibility was dangled that a) Jef might not propose or b) Emily might not say yes. Sure, and there won’t be any gratuitous necking in a hot tub in Bachelor Pad. What do you think?

Jef did indeed get down on one knee, offering a honking big Neil Lane ring and a proposal (what I want to know is, does he really talk like that or does he practise those polished-sounding speeches for hours). Emily made him wait a full 10 seconds (Chris Harrison counted), but she did say yes.

The two appeared to still be giddily in love on the After the Final Rose special, which was live for the first time. The evidence was not only in the ring still sparkling on Emily’s finger and the frequent kisses the two exchanged but the cute photos of Jef hanging out with Ricki.

Read on for a recap of what went down on the finale.

Visiting Emily’s Family: The theme of this first part of the episode was confusion.

Emily made it clear in her voiceover that she had fallen in love with both Jef and Arie, and was hoping her family could help her sort things out.

Jef and Arie both turned up at the family’s rented villa in Curacao bearing gifts: Jef had bouquets of flowers for Emily’s mom and her brother’s fiancée, which was a nice touch. Arie had a wooden box full of the desiccated roses that Emily had given to him on their “journey.” Why anybody would think someone else’s dead flowers was a good gift is beyond me, but the family professed to be touched by it. OK, so we’re kind of even.

Jef and Arie both asked for and received the permission of Emily’s dad, Dave, to ask for her hand in marriage.

Both had chats with her protective brother, Ernie, and Ernie was impressed with both of their professions of love for Emily.

“After meeting Arie I’m confused,” admitted Ernie. “Now I’m just at a total loss as to what to tell my sister to do.”

Mom Suzy was likewise flummoxed. “I really thought I would be able to say this guy over that, but I just love them both,” she said.

The family might as well have told Emily to draw straws or pick rocks for all the help they were.

But Mom did have one piece of advice: Emily shouldn’t get engaged to either of them until she’d seen how they interacted with Ricki, and Emily seemed ready to take that to heart.

“The fact I still don’t know who the guy for me is makes me wonder if any guy here is for me,” said Emily.

Final Date With Jef: So Emily had a quandary. She wanted to make her decision based on which guy was a better fit as a stepdad for Ricki, but she didn’t want to introduce the guys to Ricki. Pretty hard to see how they’ll interact with the kid if they can’t meet her, isn’t it?

Jef made that point, in a gentler way, while chatting with Emily on the beach at Cas Abao. “Think about you being in my situation,” he told her. “You’re, like, sure of it, 100 per cent, you actually found this person that gets you, matches so perfect, you know, and you haven’t met that person’s daughter.”

Emily couldn’t argue with that, so she and Jef went off hand in hand to meet Ricki at the house where she and Emily were staying.

This being The Bachelorette, the path to love, true or otherwise, can’t appear to run smoothly, so Emily commented darkly that if the meeting didn’t go well it would be “the absolute end” of her relationship with Jef.

Jef, of course, passed with flying colours. Before you knew it, he and Ricki were playing games in the pool and releasing tiny crabs on the beach and Jef was manhandling Ricki’s “monkey” doll (which didn’t look anything like a monkey), on which Ricki confessed she had wiped her Cheetos-stained hands.

“There’s no question in my mind Jef would be the best dad and the best husband,” Emily said.

That sounded like curtains for Arie right there, but then Emily added that “the way I feel about Jef is totally different than anything I’ve felt in a really long time.” Uh oh, Arie.

And then, after Jef had given Emily a book about Curacao with stick figure drawings of them inside, she noted that she and Jef got each other. “Not a lot of people get me and I don’t think a lot of people get him either.”

Jef, however, said he was worried about what Emily’s next-day date with Arie would bring.

So Long Arie: It was clear that Jef had the advantage over Arie — Arie’s kissable lips notwithstanding — but Emily made it official when she invited host Chris Harrison over for a morning chat.

But she had to find a way to tell Arie that, which brought lots of tears.

Arie, meanwhile, was oblivious, gamely mixing up a love potion in the herb garden where he and Emily were to meet.

“I feel like Emily loves me. I feel like when I tell her I can see it in her eyes,” Arie told the camera.

“I’m more than ready to get down on one knee and ask for Emily’s hand in marriage.”

Oh dear.

Emily finally made her appearance and almost immediately began crying.

“You know how I felt about you from our very first date, and even beyond that. It felt like it was gonna be me and you, and I don’t know anymore,” Emily told Arie.

Not quite as definitive as telling Harrison that Jef had everything she was looking for.

After more tears and reassurances that Arie hadn’t done anything wrong, and that she’d meant the previous things she’d said to Arie, Emily mentioned Jef just once: “I have more confidence with Jef, you know ...”

“I got you,” said Arie.

Arie tried to make his getaway with a kiss on the cheek, but Emily insisted on following him and intermittently blubbering.

“There’s nothing to say,” Arie told her. “Good luck. I don’t know what else to say. I don’t think you’re gonna get the goodbye that you wanted.”

He did thank her for sparing him the embarrassment of proposing and then he took off in an SUV with a final kiss on the cheek while Emily watched and cried.

Arie cried just a little and rubbed his face and sighed for the back-of-the-car humiliation cam. “I just feel like I give so much and I’m, like, so open and I’m a loving person, and I feel like I deserve that back. I feel like I give way more than I get,” he said.

“I was so sure, she always made me feel secure in us. I still believe that she is the love of my life. That’s why this feels so painful, you know.”

At this point, we got glimpses of the sad faces of women watching with Harrison in the live studio audience.

After the commercials, Harrison called out Bachelor/Bachelorette/Bachelor Pad alumni to commiserate with Arie and/or Emily, including Michael Stagliano, who’s been unlucky in love on both Bachelorette and Bachelor Pad; DeAnna Pappas, who was part of Brad Womack’s “double dump,” as she put it; Ashley Spivey, another of Brad’s dumpees; and, finally, happy Bachelorette couple Ashley Hébert and J.P. Rosenbaum. The consensus was that Emily had done the right thing, and cheer up Arie, because you’ll still be able to get chicks.

The Proposal: We got to see Jef picking out a giant engagement ring, walking on the beach in bright blue, rolled-up jeans and ruminating about what could go wrong as he prepared to meet Emily. Jef didn’t want to propose to Emily and have her say no, and she hadn’t told him she loved him yet.

Emily, seen getting into a long, blush-coloured dress with metallic bands across the bodice, wasn’t 100 per cent sure she wanted to be engaged. Oh the suspense.

“I’m not gonna be the girl that gets engaged 15 times before she gets married,” she told Harrison.

But Emily was all smiles when Jef showed up.

“It’s been a long road, but one I can look back on every single moment, even the lowest, and know that it was all worth it because I can stand here and tell you, you really are everything that I’ve looked for for so long,” Emily told Jef.

“I really do feel like you are my soul mate. You are the perfect person for me and you get me better than anyone has ever. I love you so much, so so much.”

Then it was time for Jef’s speech, which I’ve condensed.

“It’s so incredible that you and I found each other like this. I’m so grateful that we did. I think God puts the right people in our lives when the timing is just right and I feel like that with you.... I’m so in love with you and I promise you, Emily, that if you let me into your life and Ricki’s life you will never feel lonely ever again...

“And I want you to know that what I’m about to ask you aren’t just empty words where in a few weeks or a few months or a few years or even a few decades we’ll be lost. What I’m about to ask you is a forever thing. Emily, will you marry me?”

She smiled and sighed and finally said yes.

And after Jef had accepted the final rose and we’d relived their “journey” through clips from the season, Ricki came out and, in what I have to admit was a touching moment, Ricki, Emily and Jef all strolled off together hand in hand.

After the Final Rose: Harrison promised secrets on this after-show, but the only revelation of note was that Arie flew to Charlotte, N.C., after filming ended to try to win Emily back.

It seemed that Emily’s vagueness during her breakup speech had left him uncertain that she was really with Jef. And even when Arie phoned her to tell her he was in town, she still didn’t tell him that she and Jef were together so as not to rub salt in the wound, she said.

Arie ended up leaving his journal on her doorstep so she could get a better sense of how in love with her he’d been, which seems like a totally besotted teenager thing to do.

A phone call from Jef himself set Arie straight and Emily returned the journal Sunday night unread.

As far as I could see, Arie certainly didn’t look like he’d moved on.

But Emily put aside her vagueness to tell him that while they would have been happy together “for a lot of years,” she didn’t see it lasting forever like she did with Jef.

The first step to forever for Jef and Emily is taking a trip to Africa to build wells through his company People Water.

Jef has decided to move to Charlotte so as not to uproot Ricki from her school and friends and family.

And there’s definitely a wedding in the offing, the pair says, although they wouldn’t give a date. “I would love a spring wedding,” said Emily, who told Harrison she’s already been looking at venues in Charleston (I’m assuming she means West Virginia and not South Carolina).

The final chapter, of course, won’t be written for a while, but the season is definitely over.

However, Bachelor Pad, The Bachelor franchise’s sleazier spinoff, begins its third season Monday at 8 p.m. on OMNI.

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